Nine works in nine days: Banksy frees animals from the London Zoo in his graffiti and lets them roam the streets.
The latest image: The ninth Banksy artwork within nine days is spotted at the London Zoo on Tuesday.
The most recent artwork was discovered earlier than usual. Over the past eight days, street artist Banksy announced a new graffiti piece each day around 1 PM. On Tuesday, he shared the evidence before 10 AM London time on his Instagram account. This work is the last in a nine-part series. Banksy’s team confirmed this to the BBC. At the same time, this final piece serves as the starting point and explanation.
The image is sprayed on an outer wall of the London Zoo. It depicts a gorilla lifting a curtain and freeing the animals behind it: parrots flutter away, a sea lion crawls off. Three pairs of eyes peek out from the darkness. Their captivity is now over.
Deciphered from the end
The scene makes sense on the ninth day of the series: Here begins what has unfolded over the past days at the other eight locations in London. In Banksy’s images from this series, animals frolic in the city. Pelicans eat fish off the advertising board of a fish-and-chips shop, monkeys swing over a railway bridge to the next tree, a wolf howls into a satellite dish reminiscent of the moon.
Pelicans eating from the poster: This London chip shop has suddenly become world-famous.
In this way, Banksy connects the real inventory of the city with his sprayed motifs. In the first image of the series, a goat balances on a narrow stone ledge while chunks of stone fall onto the wall – next to a real surveillance camera. The artist must have aimed it at the falling stones himself. At least that is suggested by the first image from the installation on Banksy’s Instagram account. In later shots, it shows back to the alley.
Precarious situation: The goat stands at the edge, and a surveillance camera (right in the image) watches.
Speculations about meaning
Banksy’s series has prompted numerous different interpretations. The goat at the edge has been seen as a symbol for the situation in Palestine. Some wanted to recognize in the animal the somewhat smaller Nubian ibex, which only occurs in the Middle East. Are passersby like the video camera, watching passively as the conflict unfolds and ruins are left behind? Commentators on Instagram raised these questions when the graffiti first appeared as an isolated work a week ago Monday.
In the meantime, the work could be read in a completely different context within the animal series. Is Banksy depicting nature as it reclaims the city? This could be suggested by artwork number eight from Monday. A rhinoceros mounts a dilapidated car. The pylons on the hood make the gray little car look like a rhinoceros itself. Nature and human-made objects become similar.
A rhinoceros mounts a compact car. Are animals a more natural part of the city?
Whether Banksy intends to be understood this way remains unclear. All the more so because the motif also recalls an old Renault advertisement. In the late 1990s, the French car manufacturer advertised with a rhinoceros mounting a mini-van called Kangoo. The slogan read: “Win hearts, not beauty contests.”
“Win hearts, not beauty contests”: the Renault ad from the 90s.
Speculations about a “deeper meaning” of Banksy’s works are exaggerated, the Pest Control Office stated recently. The organization supports Banksy’s art and verifies the authenticity of the works. The British newspaper “The Observer” has characterized the latest series as a feel-good project for England, which has recently been plagued by serious riots.
The political stance of the artist, who wishes to remain anonymous, cannot be dismissed. For example, he participated in the ship MV “Louise Michel,” which rescues refugees from the sea, and adorned it with his art: a life preserver in the shape of a heart.
He also drew attention to the refugee crisis during this year’s Glastonbury Festival. While the band Idles played a song about migration, Banksy let a dinghy glide over the crowd. Inside were dolls wearing orange life vests. It looked as if the refugees were surfing over the audience like stars.
A Ukrainian boy throws the judoka Putin to the ground: Banksy’s motif from Lviv becomes a postage stamp.
In other artworks, he has spoken out against violence towards women, against Brexit, wars, and despotism. Iconic is the image in Ukraine that shows a small judoka throwing a larger opponent to the ground.
Banksy’s latest series has caused a stir in London in recent days. He has never released so many works in such a short period.
Banksy’s works are now fetching record prices. In October 2021, during a Sotheby’s auction, the work “Love is in the bin” was sold for £18.5 million, a record value for the artist.
Vandals have removed the satellite dish with the howling wolf. Banksy’s artworks are worth millions.
This has also attracted criminals in London. Masked thieves climbed onto a garage roof in Peckham, where Banksy had recently sprayed the howling wolf onto the satellite dish. They unscrewed it and ran off with it.
Artworks are being protected
Two more images have been secured for safety. The big cat on an old billboard was removed by the wall owner. He promised to donate it to an art gallery.
A police checkpoint becomes a piranha aquarium: The authorities have moved the box to a secure location. It will be exhibited there.
The police also made efforts to protect Banksy’s work – even if a jab was aimed at the security forces themselves. The artist had transformed a glassed police checkpoint into a piranha aquarium. Right next to it stood a pole with a surveillance camera, reading: “If you can see this, we can see you.” The police have removed the box and will exhibit it at a secure location.
